


watch the shrike soar

by deathhaul



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Abigail Hobbs Lives, Adopted Abigail Hobbs, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Dark Abigail Hobbs, Murder Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-31
Updated: 2020-10-31
Packaged: 2021-03-09 00:46:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,511
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27295876
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deathhaul/pseuds/deathhaul
Summary: They never found any concrete physical evidence tying Garret Jacob Hobbs to the shrike murders. What if it wasn't him after all?
Comments: 6
Kudos: 50





	watch the shrike soar

“Just like we talked about,” Abigail rolls up her sleeves before she takes the knife from her dad, who stands beside her. Both admiring her kill laid out on their butchering table. “Damage the organs-”

“You’ll ruin the meat.” Abigail parrots the words told over her first deer, she adjusts her grip on the knife before plunging it into the soft stomach of her victim. “We don’t _have_ to eat her.” Abigail mutters under her breath, her other hand stroking the long brown hair softly. 

“We have to,” her dad says. Abigail pauses from petting her hair and turns to look at him. “Otherwise it’s- it’s just… murder.” He stutters through the same explanation he always gave about the many deer that had previously laid on the table. She stares at Garret coldly, suppressing an eyeroll. She jerks the blade deeper, beginning to gut her. Abigail’s other hand finds her hair again, tangling her fingers in the long brown tresses. 

Her hair is much softer than Abigail’s. Abigail tightens her grip on the girl's hair and rolls her head so she can stare into her blank gaze. She can faintly make out her reflection in the dull blue eyes, Abigail’s calm composure and blood soaked arms are projected back to her. 

“Keep going.” Her dad urges her, not the same tone he uses when she stops to admire the beauty of the deer she had shot. It’s jittery and dripping with anxiety. Abigail continues her knife strokes, keeping eye contact with the girl who once foolishly considered Abigail a friend.

* * *

The small button click of her dad ending the phone call catches Abigail's attention, she smiles as she takes the house phone back from him. He doesn't smile back. Abigail walks over and hangs the phone back on the wall, when she turns she can see Garret staring at what will soon be their breakfast. He has gone frozen. 

"Dad?" Abigail walks over to him slowly, she focuses on the pure defeat in his eyes. "Who was that?" He slowly meets her eye contact, his shoulders slumped hopelessly. 

"They know." He whispers soft enough for her mom not to hear. He swallows down the reserve in his throat and inhales deeply before meeting her eyes again. "Just like we talked about." 

_"What happens if they find evidence?" Abigail had whispered to him one early morning during their hunt. "What do I say?"_

_"You don't say anything." He brought his rifle up to look through the scope at a massive buck. "They won't assume it was you." Abigail's blood had run cold as she stared at her dad as he fired his rifle, the sound of the buck dropping echoed in the forest. He lowed his rifle and looked over at her with a loving smile, but hidden beneath the facade was the thought 'why can't I stop you?'._

Abigail stays calm as he casts a look over to her mom. She stays calm as he picks up a kitchen knife and comes up behind her, slitting her throat. Abigail watches the blood splatter across the yellow floor as he drags her gurgling, struggling mom to the front door. She can hear the door open, slam and lock as he walks back to his daughter. 

Abigail studies the blood on his sleeves and the tears in his eyes. "What now?" She asks, she should be as panicked as him but she cannot bring herself to be. Garret walks over to where Abigail stands in the middle of their kitchen and hugs her, she is hesitant to return the affection.

"I'm sorry." He whispers and then he steps behind her and he wraps an arm around her waist, pinning her arms to her sides in the process. 

"Dad." Abigail's eyes are widen as she feels the metal softly touch her throat. Tears well and quickly fall down her face. "Dad, no, no, no. Please." Abigail begs as she cranes to look at her dad's face, who is staring at the hallway- waiting. "Let me go! It doesn't have to end this way." She kicks at his legs in a desperate attempt.

The sound of the front door being kicked in causes both of them to go tense. "Garret Jacob Hobbs!" A man yells. Abigail can see a faint smile on her dad's lips out of the corner of her eye. "FBI!" He rests the side of his head against her own. 

"Hold still." He whispers as footsteps advance. "I'm gonna make it all go away." Abigail is shaking in his arms and the knife digs softly into her neck. 

A man holding a gun appears in their hallway and her dad's grip on her tightens. 

"Please." Abigail begs, her struggling digs the blade deeper into her throat but she pays it no mind. She just has to get him to let her go.

Abigail watches the agent raise his gun. "No, no, no." She pleads at the agent, at her dad. Neither listen.

The sound of the bullet leaving his gun leaves her ears ringing, the knife tears a gash in her neck before she falls to the ground. Her dad's face has morphed into an anger she has never seen, it's just a shoulder wound. It's survivable. 

She manages a smile as she chokes on her own blood.

Then he lunges at her with his knife, and another shot rings throughout their kitchen. Each shot in quick succession sends him stumbling back against the counter, before finally falling to the ground. Abigail tenses when she feels hands on her neck, desperately trying to close her wound. The agents hands shake and he draws in uneasy breaths above her trying to stop the blood squirting from her neck.

"See?" The voice is her dad's. Abigail rolls her head the best she can to look at him, trying to just look at his eyes and not the multiple bullet wounds. He smiles softly at his daughter, the most loving smile he can muster in his final moments. "See." A drowning sob leaves her mouth as she watches the life bleed out from her dad. His blood pools onto the yellow floor along with her mom's and her own blood; a twisted family portrait.

The agent's hands slip and adjust on her slick throat as she stares at what once was her dad. _Just let me die,_ is all Abigail can think. If she had the strength and less blood in her throat she would request it.

* * *

After all the time she spent with Hannibal Abigail is still shocked he hasn't figured out what she is. The bloodstains he can see on her is only Nicholas Boyle, a stupid man, and by proxy the victims of the shrike. He figured she was the bait, which she was, but he never figured anything more than that. It almost insults her that he can't see the real her.

Hannibal adjusts Will's tie as they stand by their front door, inside one of their many homes. "Are you sure you are not going to join us?" Hannibal question as he leaves Will's appearance alone to pull on his coat.

"It's just, no offense," Abigail closes her book and looks up at the two of them in their formal wear. "Opera isn't really my thing." Hannibal nods slowly. "I'll gladly go to the art museum with you tomorrow, but opera is just... boring." Will stifles a chuckle and Hannibal throws a glance his way. In Hannibal's eyes she can do no wrong, or as Will puts it 'get away with murder'. A little on the nose for her liking.

"Very well." Hannibal says as he wraps a long scarf around his neck that she hasn't seen before, Abigail makes a mental note to one day steal it. "There are leftovers in the fridge." Abigail nods as she picks back up her book. "Please follow the reheating instructions this time." 

"Have a fun night." She makes a shooing motion with her hand and watches Will guide Hannibal out the door. The moment the door closes Abigail rises from the couch and double checks her phone. Abigail turns and looks at the massive antler rack on their living room wall, a smile bleeds across her face. It's just the right height.

A couple hours later Abigail is sitting in a chair watching her victim struggle and choke with various sharp antler points skewing her body. She flicks her eyes to her watch and back up to the slowly dying girl. _This is taking forever,_ Abigail sighs and gets up wandering into the kitchen. Her dad always bled the girls out. 

Abigail adjusts a stray hair from her long braid in hyper reflective silver fridge, wondering what Hannibal had left her for dinner. Abigail is snapped back into reality by a loud thud from the living room. She rushes into the room to find that her victim had managed to pull herself off the antlers and was stumbling towards the door. 

"You have to be kidding." Abigail mutters as she watches the girl open the door. _Good thing we live in the middle of the woods_ , Abigail thinks as she walks calmly after the victim. The girl stumbles down the steps and starts half running, half limping down the gravel road. Abigail descends the steps and eyes the axe next to the workbench, she picks it up and continues after her. 

Abigail's combat boots crunch on the gravel as she closes in on her victim. She stops and holds the axe out in front of her, lining it up with her target, before pulling it all the way behind her head with both arms. She taught herself axe throwing in the dense forest that protected their home from the rest of humanity, a way to take out her remaining anger. Abigail steadies her breath and then throws. The cry of her victim and the violent thud of the axe digging into flesh bring a smile across her lips. The girl falls just as the deer did that she used to hunt with her dad. Abigail expects a soft kiss to her forehead, a job well done, and her smile slowly fades when she remembers he isn't here to give her one.

Abigail walks to her victim and grips the axe handle, jerking it from her body. Abigail grabs her by the hair and drags her back to her house, the girl screams uselessly. Once inside Abigail throws her to the the kitchen floor after leaning her bloody axe against the wall, and picks up a kitchen knife and a large glass bowl. 

"I normally do this when the person has died." Abigail tells her as looms over her, moving down to kneel on her legs and pin her to the ground.

Abigail's words snap the girl out of her struggling and she stares up at Abigail wide eyed. Abigail nods as she slices her shirt open and taps the blade softly on her stomach, looking at the multiple bleeding wounds from the antlers. "You'll stay still, won't you?" The girl desperately nods.

"Please." She begs between tears. "Whatever you want, you can have. Just let me go." Abigail shakes her head and tosses her braid over her shoulder, grabbing the bowl from the kitchen island she is beside. She sets it on the floor and looks down at her, Abigail wonders if she looks like Hannibal in this moment. All her composure and control, she hopes he would be proud.

"Those two requests can't coexist." Abigail says before plunging the knife into her upper chest, bringing it down to gut her slowly. "I want your meat." Peeling back her skin and breaking various bones leaves Abigail able to see her organs, her _moving_ organs. Abigail pulls a memory deep from her brain as she carefully cuts out organs one by one and sets them in the bowl, the memory of her dad explaining how to gut a human. She can still hear the stutter in his voice and the fear as he read off which organ to take next, Abigail was never sure if he was scared of getting caught or scared of her.

He shouldn't have been scared of her, all her chosen victims looked just like her. And the one below her is no expectation. The bowl is full and the girl is somehow still alive. Abigail picks the bowl and puts it in the fridge, she leaves a big smear of blood on the door handle as she closes it.

* * *

Hannibal parks his car in the driveway and exits it. "It was a beautiful show, I'm sad she missed it." Hannibal notes as Will gets out of the car and closes the door.

"I'm sure she's quite content." Hannibal smiles at first but the gentle breeze makes him catch the scent of something metallic, something alive, something human. Hannibal's eyes search the outside of the house and he quickly notices the trail of blood leading up into their house. Will had followed his gaze.

"Oh God, is that-" He starts.

"Get your gun from the car." Will nods and does so, Hannibal follows him up to their house. Will opens the door slowly and the smell of blood seeps out into the chilled air, both men survey the scene until their eyes falls on the body facedown on the floor. 

The body of a woman with long dark hair is weakly dragging itself towards the door, Hannibal clenches his jaw to the point of pain. It looks like Abigail, but neither men can bring themselves to move to confirm their suspicion. Footsteps on the dark wood floor slowly approach and the woman freezes, and rolls over slowly.

It isn't Abigail. Hannibal lets out his held breath as he looks down at the girl, before slowly following her eye-line. It is not many times Hannibal is rendered speechless, but this is one of them.

Abigail looms over the girl, dressed in a simple white shirt, black jeans and her combat boots, with stray hairs from her braid obscuring her face. She is absolutely drenched in blood. 

"Please." The girl begs weakly. "Why... are you doing this?" Hannibal focuses on Abigail- herself too focused to notice her audience. He holds his breath for her reason.

"Why not?" Abigail says. She adjusts her grip on the axe she is holding, the one Will uses to chop firewood, it already drips with blood. "I was feeling nostalgic." Abigail raises the axe over her head with the skill of someone who has done it before before bringing it down violently on the girls neck.

 _Nostalgic._ The word rings in Hannibal's ears as he studies their home and his eyes fall transfixed to the deer antlers Will mounted, and the blood on several of the tips. His eyes land back on Abigail as she pulls the axe from her victims body. She brushes some hair from her face before finally looking up, staring directly at her two fathers in the doorway. 

"How was the opera?"

**Author's Note:**

> I personally love the headcanon that Abigail was the shrike after all and her dad took the fall for her. Comments and kudos appreciated!


End file.
